Checked (6 page)

11:05 a.m. Mandy’s up early. She knocks on my bedroom door.

“Hey, Callie. I’m heading out. I have to work on a group science project thing.”

“All right, Mandy. Careful.”

“See you later.”

Minutes later, I hear the front door close. I run out to check the lock and then return to my room.

Maybe I should just quickly check my email before I continue to work on my paper. If I keep up this pace, I will soon have checked my email more times in one week than I did in my entire career as an undergraduate student.

Laptop: open. Inbox: empty.

After scraping off the last bit of clear nail polish from my left pinkie finger, I press the “check email” icon.

Still nothing.
{The refrain of Whitney Houston’s
“I Have Nothing”
plays broken record-style.}

Focus, Callie.
Paper time.

THREE HOURS LATER. THREE PAGES, hand-written. Many more to go.

3:03 p.m. Email inbox is still empty.

3:05 p.m. Almost time for confession. Leaving-the-house routine.

3:45 p.m. On my way. I drive and consider the mean things I’ve thought since last Saturday. I remember the grocery store parking lot. Those loud kids and lover boy with his girl. Unnecessarily mean thoughts just because I had to sit in a parking space for a few extra minutes. Irritation toward Dr. Gabriel. Just like every week.

Perhaps you ought to tell Father Patrick about your incessant desire to check to see if a potentially married man wrote you an email. And about the fact that you are disappointed he hasn’t written more today even though he is probably off spending quality time with his wife and son. I’m pretty sure the big J.C. really doesn’t like it when you think about messing with family units.

I tell my conscience to shut it as I pull into St. Anne’s parking lot. I want him to email me because I want him to help me so that maybe in the future I won’t be pulling into this parking lot for confession every Saturday until I die.

4:02 p.m. Confession.

4:04 p.m. Out with a penance. Father Patrick wants me to say the Hail Mary three times. I say three sets of three. Just to be sure.

4:35 p.m. Home. Mandy’s already out for the night. Dinner and a movie with some sorority sisters. I see her standard note sitting on the table as I’m drying my hands. I know what it will say before I even make my way across the kitchen.

Title of the movie she’ll be seeing. Time it starts. Theatre number. General area in the theatre where she’ll be sitting. The fact that she’ll save a seat for me “just in case.”

Just in case I miraculously forget the story I heard somewhere about people with AIDS sticking themselves with needles and then placing the needles in movie theatre seats so you can get a side of disease with your movie experience.

Still haven’t forgotten, Mandy. Check back next week.

As I walk back to my room, I have to admit to myself that it’s nice that she still asks.

More Pablo Neruda tonight. I force myself not to open my laptop until I’m scheduled to during night preparations.

11:30 P.M. THREE MORE PAGES WRITTEN tonight. Night preparations complete.

He didn’t write.

I fall asleep as the chef on television is pulling a specially seasoned prime rib out of the oven.

Chapter 7

sunday

EMAIL INBOX: EMPTY. MORNING PREPARATIONS. Leaving the house routine. Church. Home. Email inbox: empty. Pablo Neruda paper: completely typed. Night preparations. Email inbox: empty.

{U2 performs one song over and over all day:
“Sunday Bloody Sunday.”
}

Chapter 8

more lists

6:00 A.M. MONDAY MORNING. DA BLAKE is back in the house. Three emails sent about fifteen minutes ago.

I force my hands to shut my laptop so I can’t open any of them. He didn’t write all day yesterday—he can wait. Besides, I’ll never make it to my class on time if I start replying to his emails now.

Morning and leaving routines. One. Two. Three. Start.

9:40 a.m. I grab a 225-calorie cereal bar and head to school. At the beginning of class, I turn in my Pablo Neruda paper and then sit and listen as Dr. Sumpter discusses poetry analysis in depth.

She has now been discussing the poetry of Tennyson for over forty-five minutes. I stopped listening when she hit the thirty minute mark.

What will be on his list today? Why didn’t I just open the emails before class? Then I could have had something to think about during this Tennyson sermon.

How many more lists will there be?
{Bob Dylan steps up to the microphone with his guitar for a little
“Blowin’ in the Wind.”
}
Will he be finished with the lists by the time I have my appointment on Wednesday?
{Actually, it’s a lot of
“Blowin’ in the Wind,”
enough to get me through most of class anyway.}

When class finally starts to wrap up, I realize that my nail polish is gone. I am going to have to paint my nails again before work this afternoon.

Dr. Sumpter gives us our next assignment. An analysis of any work by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Step aside, Mr. Neruda; I’ll be taking a new man to the bathtub with me this week.

1:25 p.m. Home. Shoes: sprayed with sanitizer. Hands: scrubbed. To the laptop.

First email. One. Two. Three. Click.

Calista,

One clarification.

1. Money—How do you feel about money itself? The actual green stuff?
   

-Dr. Blake

Oh. He doesn’t want my bank account information. This makes much more sense.

Dr. Blake,

1. Money is one of the filthiest things on the planet. I buy everything with credit cards.
   

-Calista

Count. Send. Not too bad.

Second email. Count. Open.

Calista,

Another clarification.

1. Flowers—How do you do with flowers themselves? Planting them, watering them, working with soil, etc.?
   

-Dr. Blake

Now I feel like an idiot. Of course that is what he meant by flowers, but why didn’t he just write that?

Count. Reply.   

Dr. Blake,

1. I like to look at flowers and smell them. I don’t plant them or have a garden or anything. You never know what gross stuff is waiting for you as you dig up soil.
   

-Calista

Count. Send. Okay. Last email. Count. Open.

Calista,

Here is your fourth list.

1.) Music

2.) Spare time

3.) Sex

-Dr. Blake

What?
I’d really like to see an official copy of this list of “standard” questions.

Deep breath. Count. Reply.

Dr. Blake,

1.) Music

• I listen to most types of music.
  
• Not a big fan of country music.
  

2.) Spare time

• I don’t really have much spare time.
  
• Spare time can be a bad thing—too much time for thinking.
  

3.) Sex

As I try to scrape off some nail polish, I’m harshly reminded that it’s already gone. What the hell am I supposed to write about here? My rather short history of somewhat intimate encounters? People I’d like to hook up with? Positions? How I cringe when I think of the sexual promiscuity of others?

Okay, let’s go with that. Sexual promiscuity of others.

3.) Sex

• Irresponsible people with different partners/no protection.
  
• Diseases/babies/emotional baggage.
  
• Not getting tests for diseases/spreading more diseases.
  

Enough? It’ll have to be. As I count and click, I pray that he won’t have follow-up questions on this one.

I repeat the prayer two more times. Just to be safe.

Laptop: closed. Nails: repainted. Salad (three hundred calories): eaten. Dostoyevsky’s
Crime and Punishment:
downloaded and twenty-five pages read.

3:00 p.m. Time to get ready to leave.

3:45 p.m. Off to the writing center.

Pretty quiet evening, once again. Brittany is sitting at Computer 7, but she follows procedures perfectly tonight. In three hours, she has me answer two questions and proofread a rough draft. In between answering her questions, reading Dostoyevsky, and picking at my nail polish, I observe as a new student gets up from Computer 9 and starts toward my desk.

Brittany stops him and points to the list of procedures hanging on the wall.
Well done, Brittany.
I’d like to hire her to do that for all of the scummy freshmen since they can’t freaking figure out something so simple by themselves.

Soon after, Luke at Computer 9 submits a ticket. Excellent. I proofread his draft and go back to my book.

It’s 7:00 p.m. before I know it. Time to go home.

After six hundred calories worth of dinner, I catch up with Mandy and then begin preparing for bed.

10:00 p.m. I congratulate myself on not checking my email before schedule.

Two pieces of junk email. One email from Mom about a family dinner on Sunday. I send a quick response, telling her that I’ll be there and that I’ll make dessert. She knows that means I’ll buy some pies at a local bakery.

Mom’s email ends with “Hope all is well.” That is her way of checking to see if I want to talk about my doctor’s appointment. I don’t. Melanie will fill her in on what she knows anyway.

I send my response and delete my junk mail. Inbox: empty. No DA Blake.

Look on the shiny side of it, Callie. No follow-up questions either.

11:30 p.m. In bed, lulled to sleep by the sound of a knife chopping onions and celery for some sort of crepe-wrapped meal.

TUESDAY MORNING. TWO CLASSES TODAY. One email.

Calista,

Here is your final list.

1.) Parties

2.) Grammar

3.) Clean

-Dr. Blake

Last list? Does that mean last email?

Count. Reply.

Dr. Blake,

1.) Parties

• Uncomfortable
  
• Spills
  
• Loud
  
• Sweaty
  
• No personal space
  

2.) Grammar

• Very important
  
• People don’t spend enough time proofreading.
  

3.) Clean

• My bathroom
  
• My sisters and mother
  
• Shower/bath
  
• Kitchen sink
  
• Antibacterial soap (not the waterless kind)
  
• Organization
  
• Sanitation
  
• My bedroom
  

-Calista

One. Two. Three. Send.

Morning routine. Leaving routine.